Jump
JP3 Drabble. Billy thinks on his life as he looks over the waterfall on Isla Sorna. What pushed him to jump? One-sided AlanBilly. Major angst. Pre-Slash. Mentions of suicidal thoughts
JUMP
He remembered the first time he had heard it – the voice in the back of his head, urging him on, closer to the edge than he should have ever gone. The same voice that goaded everyone, right when they confronted their most inner, most desperate, greedy, selfish desires. Oh, yes. Billy could remember perfectly, like it was just the other day, the first time.
The First time he had jumped. It was a warm summer day, a common occurrence in rural Tennessee. He was out in town with his family – or, at least, what was left of it. Billy had only been on the earth three years at the time, unaware of just how that time span would pale in comparison to the eons he would traverse in his future.
As he passed by the railing around the town skate park, he heard it. The voice. Pushing him nearer the rail, until he was pressed against the bars. Billy looked down. There was a small incline, but it was a mountain to the small boy. Grinning, he ducked between the bars, holding onto one so he wouldn't be taken by gravity before he was ready.
Unsure exactly what he's doing, but trusting that inner voice that reassured him all the while, Billy closed his eyes. Sliding forward a few inches, he releases the railing, spreading his arms like the wings of a bird about to take flight. Wind rushed against his face as he begins to plummet, never having felt more satisfied than this moment. He starts to laugh out his contentment, never wishing the moment to end as his toes slip from the ledge –
Suddenly he's flat on the ground, his step-father's hand clasped around his arm, the older man's face red with fury. Billy learns then that adults don't understand.
And that they never will.
JUMP
He was five when he heard it the second time. Billy stood atop the highest structure his school playground had to offer. As he looks down to the ground he came from, the voice returns. He's mildly surprised by its sudden return, but not enough to stop what he's about to do.
Billy moves over to the one section not fenced in with a tall plastic siding, a minuscule gap next to the slide formed when the construction workers allowed their attention to stray. He takes a final glance over the world he had never really understood, then bid it farewell.
He's caught by the gym teacher, who saw him move to make his leap. As he's set on his feet, Billy frowns at the lecture he's given. Of course he knew that the jungle gym was tall – that's why he climbed it. Why didn't the teacher understand what Billy wanted?
That was the day Billy learned that Adults never listen. They don't care. And they don't understand.
JUMP
He's twenty when the voice changes. It's his first day on the dig site in the Montana Badlands. Billy had left the dig site for the evening, choosing instead to stand on a ridge near the excavation. He needs to clear his head.
He needs distance from his current supervisor. He still can't believe that he's working under THE Dr. Alan Grant. Almost as much as he can't believe the pictures betrayed reality that much.
But damn the man's attractive.
"You know there's a group of kids that goes rock climbing just over there."
Billy jumps, startled by his supervisor's sudden appearance. Dr. Grant smiles knowingly at him, and Billy feels his face flush red with shame. He manages to get his voice box to work after a few seconds.
"That sounds really cool."
Grant smiles again, nodding. "You've been looking at that ridge for a long time. Did something catch your interest?"
At those words, Billy can't remember any voice other than the one speaking to him in this instant.
He doesn't have the nerve to say "You".
Because Dr. Grant's and Adult. He doesn't care. He doesn't understand.
He'll never understand.
JUMP
He's twenty seven when he hears it for the last time. Twenty seven, three months away from his PhD in Paleontology, stranded on Isla Sorna, surrounded by dinosaurs – not dinosaurs; 'Genetic Theme Park Monsters' - and the one man whose opinion he cared more than anything about saw him as second only to the devil.
Billy thought for a moment that he could die from that statement alone.
"You're no better than the people that built this place."
As Billy gazed out over the waterfall crashing magnificently down on this cursed island, he heard it again, that voice. The same voice that had been with him all his life, the voice that had driven him to finding some outlet – some relief. It was the reason he had taken up all of the extreme sports he had; the reason that he felt so secure with the contents of his pack. It was the reason that he could feel himself steadily inching closer to the edge of the precipice above the gorge that was loving Alan Grant.
But he had just taken several steps back from that ledge, just as he would now.
This time, as he battled with the deep urge to jump, he found it was not those things which feebly tried to hold him back that drove him closer to the shattered windows. For the first time, Billy discovered that exactly the opposite was true.
In all actuality, Billy realized there was absolutely nothing holding him back from the edge. He realized that what he felt now wasn't a desire for freedom, but for death. It made sense really, as he looked out over the landscape which had once been so beautiful. He had betrayed the man he looked up to, the man he loved, for the flimsiest of reasons.
There was no such thing as the best of intentions. There was only fierce desire. Billy hadn't taken the eggs hoping they would fund the dig – he took them so that Alan could dig. Without that, he would have no reason to stay around Alan. His dissertation was ready to defend, he had simply procrastinated in submitting it, falsifying some excuse about editing or double-checking something.
In reality, he hadn't wanted to lose Alan. And in trying to keep him, he had done that so much more effectively than any degree could. Alan was not only unreachable – he was worlds away. He was up in heaven with the angels he belonged with while Billy was stranded down here in Hell.
He gazed longingly out the window, having never known a desire as fierce as the one that demanded he go over that edge right now. Without realizing it, Billy took several steps forward, wanting nothing more than to end this pitiful human life he had been saddled with. Soon it would be over. Soon Alan wouldn't have to worry about him anymore. He wouldn't be his responsibility. Billy would be under the command of another being by that time.
A stray though stopped him in his tracks. What use would he be to the group if he was a body floating down the river?
Many people would believe that Billy was a liberal Arts or English major. But he had struggled in those classes more than he should have. Actually, Billy's best grades had come from the probability and statistics course he took his junior year. He found the figures simple, and could relate to them in ways he couldn't with much else. The noticeable exception being bones. Those he could feel at home with even when they were still in the ground.
Without realizing it, Billy started to calculate the probability of the others surviving if he left now, or waited for a better chance to do it. The answer made him turn away from the shattered glass and rushing water. There would certainly be a better time for him to heed the voice's pressure. On this island, there would always be the need for a sacrifice. After all, what was that saying divers joked to their buddies about? I don't have to out swim the shark; I just have to out swim you.
Billy would make sure the others swam faster than him. Then he would jump.
He doesn't have to wait long to start treading water as the rest of the group speeds away. As soon as they enter the Pteranodon cage, he knows that his time is coming.
The voice shouts louder at him as Erik is carried away by the winged reptiles. And Billy stops resisting its pull. He looks around, fighting back a grin as he spots a gap torn through the mesh of one platform. He almost misses Alan's arrival, as he seeks out the straps surrounding his body. Billy catches a vision of Alan's terror at the audible snap of the harness fastener. But he finds no time to consider anything other than finally being free of this unwieldy body as he sprints up the stairs.
"Billy?" Alan shouts after him, clearly close behind him. Billy pays it no heed. After all, Probability was his best subject. He closes another clip.
The probability ticked up. One, two… three… seventeen percent greater chance of the group surviving with Erik and without him, versus with him and without Erik. The kid was young, strong. He had had a full night of sleep; Billy felt like he was a chronic insomniac. Erik had survived on the island for two full months; Billy worked with rocks and fossils.
There was no question. A third strap snaps into place
"Billy, Stop!" Alan pleads behind him. Billy just keeps running, knowing there is only one way to end this. To fix the hole he shot through both their souls the instant he stole those eggs. Besides…
"Billy! Stop! Please!" Alan's an adult. He doesn't understand. They never do.
Billy snapped the last clip in place, leaping with sure feet onto the railing. For an instant he is overcome with déjà-vu of his first time jumping, but it is quickly suppressed.
He only risks one glance over his shoulder, and then he jumps.
He doesn't notice the distraught horror on Alan's face as he falls into what he has always been.
Because Billy Brennan was born to fly.
JUMP
He's Twenty Eight when the voice disappears completely.
"Happy Birthday Billy." Alan whispers in his ear, cradling his uninjured hand in both of his. Billy summons the courage to cease his act of sleeping, looking at his professor. Alan smiled at him, the first true smile Billy's seen since the Pteranodons nearly finished what he had jumped off that bridge to do, four days ago.
Billy can't help but return it. For once, any resistance seems completely pointless, and he can find nothing he wants more than to finally obey the voice that has been urging him towards the edge for as long as he can remember.
Sitting up on the hospital bed, Billy locks his eyes with Alan's, willing to now take that final plunge now that he knows how little he really has to lose.
As their lips meet, Billy finds himself falling. And the voice, satisfied, disappears.
He is finally free.
JUMP